


Love, I've Missed You In a Million Different Ways (How Is It We Keep On Writing Tragedies Together?)

by Rinari7



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 16:38:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18319160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinari7/pseuds/Rinari7
Summary: "You sure these are the two?" Claudia can't keep the doubt — and frustration — from seeping into her voice.Leena quirks an eyebrow, heavy black wings rising with it for emphasis."Fine, fine! Just asking." Claudia heaves a longsuffering sigh, and blows her bangs out of her face. "All right, reboot number whatever-the-fuck, coming up..."So many universes, so many chances. One of them has to stick properly, if these two belong together... Right?





	1. In The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Bering and Wells Secret Santa 2018 gift for [dapperdorian](https://dapperdorian.tumblr.com) over on tumblr  
> Requested was angsty unrequited love, and well, since I couldn't decide on one scenario and am categorically incapable of keeping my gifts and prompt responses to any reasonable scale, here this is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> High School AU

She read science fiction. It was the first week of junior year, and Myka Bering was sitting in the corner of the lunchroom,  _ Journey to the Center of the Earth _ open in front of her, glasses pushed up her nose and her curls tumbling in her face. And she read, flipping the page every now and again, not at all seeming to care about who did or didn't pay attention to her.

“Tracy.” Helena nudged the freshman beside her with her shoulder, tilting her head towards the corner. “Isn't that your sister?”

Tracy glanced over her shoulder, quickly, a little furtively. “Yeah, that's Myka,” she murmured, hunching her shoulders, her attention focused on the others at the table — Kurt, Giselle, Megan, Zack, Taylor — as if checking to see if they'd heard.

“Why don't you invite her to sit with us?” Helena wasn't above taking advantage of the social privilege her “cool new foreign student” status gave her. And she wanted to know this girl better.

But Tracy shook her head. “Trust me,” she muttered, “My sister is happiest just as she is.”

She didn't  _ look _ particularly happy, Helena thought, as she glanced back at Myka again. But wouldn't her sister know her best?

 

***

 

They had sports together — “P.E.” as the Americans called it, “physical education.” As if there was anything particularly educational about getting shoved around a basketball court for forty-five minutes.

(It wasn't as if Helena had anything  _ against _ being skin to sweaty skin with another girl. She would just have preferred it be during something  _ useful _ , like Kenpo, or in a decidedly different and much more appealing context.)

Helena was competitive, by nature. Myka was not particularly good at the sport, despite her height. But then came the laps, and Myka took off, leaping ahead like a gangly gazelle, all awkward grace.

She looked a little freer, in that moment, free from something one only noticed had been haunting her once it was gone. Helena's breath came hard and fast and she watched Myka run.

 

***

 

Myka's locker was three down from Helena's. Three down, and Helena caught a glimpse of the inside of the door. No photos, just words: Pablo Neruda, and “Do not go quietly into the cold dark night,” and “By their fruits you shall know them,” in an elegant cursive hand Helena was almost certain belonged to Myka.

She looked at the inside of her own locker, sketches of imaginary planetscapes strewn in between the magnetic chessboard Caturanga had given her and several pictures of Buffy and B'Elanna Torres. When she looked back, Myka was walking away, fencing épée in hand.

 

***

 

“Is this seat free?”

Myka started, stiffened, and then tucked her hair behind her ear, glancing sideways at Helena. She lifted one shoulder, hunching down like a turtle retreating into its shell. “Yeah, I guess.” 

“Aces.” Helena grinned, setting her tray down and sliding in next to her.

Myka blinked, with wide, startled eyes, and shifted a little further away, to give her more room.

“I'm Helena.” She picked up her fork to stab at what the cafeteria called lasagna, wrinkling her nose. “Though you can also call me H.G. Most everyone does. You're Tracy's sister, aren't you? Myka?”

“Yeah,” she responded, after a moment's hesitation, and minutely inspected the contents of her lunchbox.

“So you're a fan of H.G. Wells?” Helena nodded towards  _ The Time Machine _ lying on the table. “My mother was a great admirer of his. Hence my initials.”

“I guess you could say that,” Myka murmured. “My dad used to read me his novels, when I was younger.”

“H.G.!” Giselle stopped in front of the table, with a bemused wrinkle to her nose. “Why don't you come sit with us?”

“The table here is free, so far as I can tell.” Helena shrugged, gesturing to the empty space. “Kurt!” she called over to the quarterback. “Join us, why don't you?” Turning to Myka, she asked,“You don't mind, do you?”

Mutely, Myka shook her head, pressing her lips together.

Kurt trotted over like the hulking puppy dog he was, and sat opposite them. “Hi, uh, Myka, wasn't it?”

Myka squeaked, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Yeah, yeah, that's me. Myka Bering, right here.”

“Is that for English?” Megan sounded a tad horrified, as she set her tray down beside Kurt's and pointed at the book. Helena only just suppressed a sigh.

“No.” Myka looked down at her food again.

Tracy shot Helena an exasperated-embarrassed-helpless look as she slid in beside her. “Our father owns a bookstore,” she offered, as though one needex some sort of excuse for liking to read.

Giselle finally settled in at the end of their row, combing a finger through her red curls. “I  _ would _ write an essay on how annoying it is so few ‘classic’ books we're supposed to read have women in them, but I'm already swamped with Trig. I should  _ not _ have taken that AP class.”

Kurt made a face. “I’ve done geometry, but coach says if I don't pass algebra this year I can't stay on the team.”

There was a round of appropriately sympathetic noises.

“I could tutor you,” Myka said suddenly,  unexpectedly loudly. Everyone quieted and looked at her. Her cheeks colored. “I got an A in it last year. I mean, if you want. You don't have to —”

“No, that's — that's real sweet of you, Myka.” Kurt was tilting his head, as if looking at her in a new light. “You wouldn't mind? I could find a way to pay you a bit, if you wanted.”

“No!” She shook her head. “No, I'm happy to help.”

“Well, then, thanks. You want my number? We'll have to work around football practice, but let me know whatever time works for you and I'll be there.” He was already pulling out his phone, apparently oblivious to the way Megan tossed him and Myka suspicious, sulky glances, and Giselle and Tracy held themselves stiff with discomfort.

“Of course! I — I have fencing practice after school anyways, so it's not like — I wouldn't be waiting.” Myka was fumbling with her phone, too, taking the number down as he dictates it, offering hers right back.

This wasn't — this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, and Helena floundered in the disappointment welling up in her throat. She'd never had any problems with school, but now she almost wished she had.

Myka tucked her phone away, biting her lip on a happy little smile. “I, uh, I have to head by the library before my next class, but I'll see you around.” She zipped up her almost-untouched lunch, tucking  _ The Time Machine _ to her side. “Let me know when you have time, Kurt.”

Helena closed her mouth, and watched her go.

“Told you so,” Tracy muttered around the straw in her milk carton.

 

***

 

Helena tried again, the day after. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

“If you want.” Myka shifted over, not even looking up from  _ The War Of The Worlds _ .

Halfway to setting down her tray, Helena stopped, suddenly exasperated. “Would you prefer I not? I have no desire to force my company upon you.”

At this, Myka finally looked up, looked her in the eyes. A melancholy sort of fire flickered in her gaze, sucking all the air from Helena's lungs. “Look, your crowd isn't my thing. I won't be taken advantage of, and I don't want to be some kind of social charity case. So whatever you're trying to do, you might as well just, not.”

Helena rolled her eyes against the sting of those words. “Yes, because heaven forbid someone might  _ actually _ want to get to know you.” Giselle was waving her over towards their usual table, so she went, bristling and disappointed.

 

***

 

Megan complained into the girls’ chat that Kurt had blown her off after practice, because Myka hqd been waiting. Helena could only imagine: Myka sitting on the bleachers hunched over the book in her lap, fencing foil at her side to complete her awkward-solid-ethereal aura, the way she'd look up when the coach called for them to finish... Helena wasn't telling Megan she'd have done exactly the same.

 

***

 

The next day, Helena headed for the little group's usual table. She could tell where she wasn’t wanted — though she couldn't think of what she might have done to deserve Myka snubbing her like that. Yet that twinge of bitterness did nothing to dampen her curiosity.

“How was your first tutoring session?” she asked Kurt, sliding into the spot next to him. “What's she like?”

Kurt paused for a moment, forehead wrinkling, obviously having to think it over. “She's all right, I guess. She's really smart. It took a little while, like she had to explain things a couple of times before I got it, but then, like, we just clicked, you know? She said I could pay her in Twizzlers, you know, the red kind?”

Helena assumed he wasn't actually looking for a response, and at any rate she wouldn't have trusted herself to give one.

“She’s got a sense of humor, too, once she loosens up.” Slowly, Kurt smiled, in his bright-charming-handsome way Helena was beginning to fucking hate. Like it was a sudden realization, he added, “I guess she’s actually sort of hot, in a cute, dorky kind of way.”

_ You don't bloody have to tell  _ _ me _ _ that. _ Helena stabbed at one of her chicken nuggets, and the plastic fork snapped.

 

***

 

The next day, Myka had  _ Sense and Sensibility _ with her at lunch. Silently, Helena cursed. She might just be in love,  _ bloody weakness for bloody gorgeous girls with bloody adorable glasses and my bloody favorite books _ .

 

***

 

(She took Giselle to the winter formal. She was proud of herself, for only tossing three — fine, four — longing, envious glances at the way Myka rested her head on Kurt's shoulder during a slow song, rested it there with a joyously contented smile Helena wanted to fucking kiss off her lips.)


	2. When Fate Was Written Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU

Myka didn't quite believe in soulmates, not wholeheartedly. But the nineteenth day of every December, she went about her routine with a heightened awareness of everyone around her, every passing glance, every brief brush of fingers. And every time, she'd glance at her wrist, to find the words still there:  _ December 19th, jet-black tresses, a careless brush, gazes locking, a fire in my heart, my very own Athena and Helen of Troy and Eurydice... _ She’d blow out a breath, and wonder why she'd even bothered.

“You'll know when she comes,” Tracy had told her, beaming, hand in hand with her husband Kevin, both their wrists blessedly blank. “You don't even have to look. You'll just know, I promise.”

Myka highly doubted it.

So today she gripped her coffee that much tighter, tugging down her long sleeves, and tried to think only about her flight home to Colorado for Christmas. There were too many people at the airport, far too many to care about who touched her today.

Lost in her thoughts for that split second, she didn't see the half-running woman weaving through the crowds until it was too late. Myka walked right into her path.

The woman tripped over Myka's foot, just managing to catch herself on her hands and knees, papers spilling out of her messenger bag all over the floor of the terminal, her suitcase drifting a foot or two behind her on its four wheels. Myka nearly fell herself, over this body that was suddenly in front of her.  _ Thank God for fencing footwork, _ because she managed to stay upright, but both her coat and her coffee were now on the floor among this woman's things.

“Bollocks,” the woman on the floor muttered, sweeping Myka's coffee cup away from her papers with her elbow and attempting to gather up said papers at the same time.

Myka crouched to help her, draping her coat over her suitcase handle and then picking up the papers as well. Passengers and passers-by avoided them, creating an odd little bubble around them, though someone trod on several sheets of what looked to be a manuscript, threatening to fall themselves and leaving a dirty size 10 bootprint behind.

The woman was still grumbling under her breath, something about a “trip from the depths of bloody frozen hell,” and Myka bit back the exasperated question on the tip of her tongue about  _ why on Earth were you running in a crowded airport terminal? _ Instead, she peeled the last few unfortunately coffee-soaked sheets from the floor — she couldn't help but be impressed at the subject matter, something about quantum mechanics and the philosophical implications of parallel universes and setting up solar farms in longitudinal orbit — and held them out towards her. “Here. I'm sorry, I didn't see you coming.”

“Thanks.” She tossed her dark hair out of her face and gingerly took the soaked papers, grimacing. “You and me both.”

Myka looked, really looked at her for the first time, and her mouth ran dry. Even disheveled, this woman looked like she had just stepped off a pedestal in the Louvre instead of an airplane in Washington-Dulles.

Myka had to clear her throat to be able to speak, suddenly dumb and tongue-tied. “Um, can I get you some paper towels or napkins? There's a food court just that way.” She pointed, standing and offering a hand to help the other woman up as well. She had the time. Myka Bering was always over-early.

“No, thank you.” The woman pressed her lips together, tightening the corners of her mouth in some approximation of a smile. “I have — I have somewhere to be. Thank you, though…” She held out her hand, tilting her head as if expecting some kind of response, for Myka to fill in a gap.

Then Myka understood. “Myka. Myka Bering.” She took the woman’s hand, and smiled, something unexpectedly light filling her. “Try not to run anyone else down, please?”

“An officer of order, are we?” She arched an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth curling up into a smirk as she stuffed the last of the papers haphazardly into her bag, and reached for her suitcase.

“Sort of.” Myka didn't generally tell people where she worked, but… This woman she wanted to tell. “Government security.”

“I would ask exactly what that means, but —” Her gaze wandered towards the doors she'd been running to in the first place, and Myka understood. She had places to be. Myka quashed disappointment, a disappointment that had no business butting into this situation.

“Have a good, uhm — holiday,” Myka stuttered out, reaching behind her for her suitcase handle.

The other woman paused, for a moment, looking Myka in the eyes, and Myka could tell she meant her next words wholeheartedly: “Have a safe trip and happy holidays, Myka Bering.”

“Thank you.”

The woman was already heading towards the doors, breaking into a swift trot.

Myka sighed, and glanced around for her lost coffee cup and a janitor; she should at least throw away the cup, and the puddle was definitely a safety hazard. And, dammit, coffee had splattered all over her sleeves, from the elbow down.

At least she could roll them up and mostly disguise — her wrist was blank. Her wrist was blank. She'd met — she was running towards the doors, murmuring “sorry, excuse me”s left and right. A little wildly, she burst onto the walkway outside and looked around.

There — she was running again, the raven-haired Greek goddess, how had Myka not seen it before? — running and then she bent down and swept two little girls into her arms.

Myka slowed, taking in the scene properly, heart creeping up her throat. A man and a woman stood beside a very suburban minivan, and when the dark-haired woman — her soulmate, and Myka both  _ knew _ and couldn't quite believe this was happening — finished hugging the girls and stood, she kissed them. She kissed both of them, a full-on longing sort of kiss that said  _ I've missed you _ and  _ I want you _ and  _ I love you _ and  _ I'm right where I want to be _ .

Myka took a step back. She'd been stupid. She'd never believed in soulmates anyways. It was — of course this woman had her own life and her own family and screw that stupid tattoo for making her think —

“Mummy,” one of the girls said, high and clear and piercing, “why's that lady staring at you funny?”

“Hm?” Myka's soulm— the woman turned, and caught sight of Myka. Her grin turned into something unreadable, her shoulders stiffening. “Oh, Mummy accidentally fell over inside. I think she just wanted to make sure I’m okay.” She turned her back to Myka, her words loud and clear as she crouched down to their level. “I was being silly, but I just couldn't wait another minute to see you again!” This time, Myka heard the force behind the cheer in her voice. 

Per some silent signal, the man opened the trunk and began loading her bags. The other woman touched her shoulder, murmuring something Myka couldn't hear, and began leading the girls into the car.

Myka's — the woman who'd run into her didn't turn, still facing the passenger side of the van as she rose again. Pushing her right sleeve halfway up her forearm, she angled her elbow so Myka could see the black ink letters on her wrist:  _ I cho- _

_ I choose _ , Myka knew it said,  _ I choose whom I love _ . A not uncommon phrase, a deliberate inscription over any original soulmark.

Myka set her jaw, inhaled, and took one step back. Then another, and another.

The woman climbed into the car, meeting Myka's gaze again for a split second as she closed the door. Myka looked down, and ran her hand over her now-smooth wrist, wishing that damn tattoo was still there so she could mutilate it, burn it off, still have the hope that someone would see her, understand her, want her, like no one else.

It was as if she was missing a piece of herself she hadn't known existed until now.

She'd never thought it would hurt so much, to be passed over by a stranger.

 


	3. She Would Have Given Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Superheroes/Sci-Fi (sort of) AU

“I never want to meet you like this again.” Myka bit out, as she grabbed Helena's hand and jumped them both to the posh downtown lobby.

“Well, don't.” Helena lifted one shoulder. “But I'm not going to aside while this plague wrecks —”

“If you want to help, go back to your lab. You are not Batman! Or — Batwoman, or whoever. One of these days you're going to get yourself killed!” And her concern was very real. “And we  _ need _ you.”

“That fictional, pouty, playboy Gary Stu? I should hope not!” Helena arched her eyebrows at Myka, and shook her head in disbelief. “Quite frankly, I’m offended that comparison even  _ occurred _ to you.”

“Helena, you’re not super,” Myka hissed at her. “And you have —”

A loud crash rang out above them.  _ Amanda lost the queen _ , Steve relayed.

_ On it. _ “Get out of here, and stay out,” Myka grit out, and jumped back to the 10th floor to search.

Higher than 10. Lower than 15. Closer to 15 than 10, judging by the volume of the ruckus. Coming higher, the screech of metal giving way under demonic claws.  _ Elevator shaft _ . To confirm, she jumped several floors below, inside the shaft. 

The breathless cold split second of everywhere and nowhere. Steeling herself against the rushing freefall, the crack of instinctual panic.  _ Up, look up. _

A forked tail, lashing out, snagged her hair.  _ That was too close. _ Closing her eyes, she jumped again, without those strands.

Solid ground beneath her feet, no large, otherworldly presence.  _ Definitely in the elevator, and climbing, Steve. _ Then she fell onto all fours, shaky and ungainly.

“Don't you  _ dare _ talk to me about risking my life, when they need you just as much.” A fierce murmur in her ear, and a vial was pressed against her hand. “Drink.”

Myka opened her eyes just in time to see the swarm zipping up the avenue, Helena flinging a grenade through the doors into the middle of it. Flame burst through the cloud of insects, licking at wings and silencing snapping mandibles.  _ The drones are here. First wave is dealt with, but I'm sure more are coming. _

_ Copy. _ She could hear the frown in Steve's thoughts.  _ We need to get these civilians out of here _ .

_ Shit. Why here? _ It wasn't a food source for them (like the nuclear power plant just outside of town) or on the dessert menu (the slaughterhouse just across the county line) or even a good nesting spot (no large, open yet enclosed spaces).

_ Better here than almost anywhere else. _

Office complex on a Saturday afternoon…  _ You have a point. _

_ Helena gave you something. Take it. _

_ You connected her, too? _ A miserable foreboding rose in Myka's throat. But that was Pete's forte, not hers.

_ Safer for everyone, _ was all Steve offered in return.

Myka uncorked the vial and drank. It didn't happen all at once, but her heartbeat slowed, a new energy crackling through her veins.

“What  _ was _ that stuff?” She called across the lobby, as she straightened, rising, testing her knees.

“Just something I cooked up.” Helena didn't spare her a glance, alternating between eyeing the street outside and a flashing gadget on the marble floor by her feet.

“Yeah, I got that much.” She rolled her shoulders, checking for any aches.

“Well, I don't have the time to explain the various biochemical process involved,” Helena snapped.

“I was pre-med, you know. Before —” She couldn't find the words for —  _ this _ madness. “Before.”

“I didn't know,” Helena said, softly, and Myka glanced at her to find that  _ this _ was the thing that got her attention. A kind of sorrow flickered in her dark eyes, and Myka almost wondered if she was thinking, for the first time, about how  _ her _ screw-up had affected everyone else.

“I was going to switch over to pre-law, though.” She brushed it off. Something wasn't quite right, that last jump... “Just didn't know how to tell my dad. You kind of saved me the trouble.” Because the last thing she needed was pity from Helena  _ fucking _ Wells.

Helena nodded, slowly, her gaze wandering back to the now-beeping device at her feet. “I was a writer, before.”

“I know. Writer, inventor, physicist, all-around polymath.” Something in Myka's back  _ clicked _ into place, and all her atoms lined up again — sans that shorn-off hair, she reminded herself, running the flat of her hand over the ragged curls. If she tried to reassemble more matter than was there… 

_ You good to go? _

“You did?” There shouldn't be that much surprise in Helena's voice, for someone once heralded as “ _ the next Jules Verne or Anne McCaffrey _ .”

_ Yep. Where? _

They were all huddled in a storage closet on the 7th floor, eight weekend workaholics, one with a kid. Steve was shielding them all from the creature’s senses for now, but the effort it was taking him slipped over their connection as well.

She jumped.

Her eidetic memory served her unspeakably well, in that she could look at a roomful of people and know exactly how to reassemble them. “Hold hands, please,” as she reached for Steve to one side of her and the nearest civilian on the other. “No disabilities or chronic conditions?”

“Asthma,” one person in the back piped up.

“All right, noted. Shouldn't be a problem.”  _ Where to? _

_ Mall on King and McAllister. _ It was a good three blocks away, but definitely out of any potential lines of fire. Myka drew on all of her focus, making sure she could  _ feel _ every one of them, and jumped.

A tug, a weight on her core, as she pulled them all through spacetime. Head throbbing as she stumbled onto the sidewalk, relief flooding her as they all came through all right.

Steve tightened his grip, wrapping his other arm around her to keep her from falling.

“You all right?” It was almost startling to her his voice in her ear, after so often hearing it only in her head.

“I will be,” she muttered.

“Get back to Helena. She'll look after you while you rest up.”

“Where the hell are Amanda and Pete?”  _ Why couldn't one of them babysit me? _

_ Amanda and Pete are doing their damn best to contain that queen. _

_ Fine. _

So she sucked in a breath and, for the third time in what felt like as many minutes, she jumped back to that damn lobby.

— Nearly jumped straight  _ into _ Helena, careened as she shifted her destination at the last moment, Helena's startled “ _ oh! _ ” loud in her ear. Helena's arms wrapped around her, as she came to rest back in reality again.

“We've really  _ got _ to stop meeting like this.” Low, teasing, warm breath feathering over her ear.

Myka let herself sag forward. “Screw you,” she muttered.

“You're quite welcome to, some other time.” 

_ I just learned way more about you two than I ever wanted to know. _

_ Butt out, Steve! _ And she could practically feel the same sentiment emanating from Helena, though she couldn't hear her directly.

_ Kinda hard right now, sorry. _

Helena guided her over to a red leather armchair, Myka dragging her feet one after another. At least she shouldn't be crucial to operations now, unless they needed a scout, or bait, or a distraction, or a split-second save. Again.

Myka bent over, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, hair falling in her face. Tried not to feel awkward about how sweaty and gross she was making this nice chair.

She heard Helena make some kind of round of the space, muttering to herself, occasionally British-cursing at some gadget or another. Myka focused on breathing and getting her presence of mind back together. “Do you have another of those pick-me-ups?”

“I wouldn't recommend downing two in a row. Just as a precaution.”

“Okay.” She lifted her head, to watch as Helena watched the exterior. A laptop balanced on the narrow reception desk, floor plan of the building on display, surrounded by sporadically flashing indicators of, something, and now Helena paid this more attention than the view through the glass doors. A flash- _ bang _ off to their left, building lights flicking off and on again.

“Don’t tell me it wrecked the wiring somewhere.” God, she was getting fucking  _ tired _ . Both right now, and of everything.

“That was me. Experimental chain-lightning —” she caught Myka's look — “Basically a super-sized swarm taser. Or, attempt at one.” And she frowned at the screen.

“Great. You can knock them out. Now just jump this entire freakshow back off of our plane of existence already.”

“Yes, thank you, I’ve been  _ working _ on that for the past six months already.” Annoyance crackled through her voice.

“Stopping every time there's even the faintest  _ hint _ of an attack to go play Batman with us. Or really more Lois Lane.” Myka knew only the vaguest of comic book premises from Pete. “Or whoever the mad scientist is. Harley Quinn, maybe?”

“That is  _ low _ .” Helena's voice shuddered.

_“I Encountered Aliens From Another Dimension,” Claims Sci-Fi Author;_ _The Secret Crackpot Side of Physics’ Once-Rising Star; Local Mother Institutionalized, Daughter Left In Uncle's Care;_ the headlines flashed across her memory, and she hung her head again. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

Helena hummed vaguely. It wasn't quite acceptance, but Myka would take it.

“Hopper, 10 o'clock.” Myka winced inwardly as its spines shattered window after window on its zigzag path through downtown, thirty feet above ground.

“Yes, I'm aware. How about you do your job and let me do mine?”

“Sorry,” Myka muttered. “Just trying to be helpful.”

“Well, you're not.”

“Besides, I wouldn't exactly call this your job.”

_ Can you cool it with the negative energies? Really making things difficult right now. _

Myka braced herself against the loud  _ crash _ upstairs, the way the entire building shivered with the massive impact. Then a loud  _ kreee! _ and the creature fell to the ground outside, writhing on its back, screaming as it melted from its eight feet down.

“What — did you coat the building in something? Or has someone nearby recently discovered the power of carapace-melting acid shields?”

A wicker café chair across the side street burst into flames, and Helena swore.

“Is that going to melt through the cement?” It would be kind of impressive, if this stuff did manage that trick. It almost looked like it might, as the hopper's screams died down to a low gurgle.

“It  _ shouldn't _ . It should only react with their exoskeletons but —”

“It is.” The last of the creature utterly dissolved, the acidic puddle was now carving itself its own little pondspace, sinking into the middle of the intersection. 

A loud sigh. “That's what field tests are for.”

“Really? In the middle of the  _ city _ ?” Myka stood, outrage eating away at her. “You  _ are _ utterly insane.”

Helena glared at her, and for a split second, Myka was glad those piercing eyes weren't super. “Oh, I'm sorry. Was I supposed to try to lure one out into the middle of bloody nowhere, and try to contain it, just to douse it in deadly acid, and hear from  _ you _ , ‘Oh, how could you, Helena? Doing something so dangerous on your own! You're too  _ important _ and we need you working to fix this reality tear  _ you _ ripped open! Think about others for once!’” Her mimic was mocking, annoyingly accurate for this familiar argument.

_ Stop it! Fight later! _

If Helena heard Steve, she gave no sign. “Myka Bering, my entire  _ life _ right now is dedicated to mitigating the damage I've caused the best I know how, and I don't need to hear that sort of shite from  _ you _ !”

She was trembling; they both were. In her peripheral, something burst into flames; a window shattered, smoking shrapnel landing on the entryway carpet.

Myka kicked at it, and found herself swaying on her feet. “You set up a minefield?”

“A perimeter, yes. For the moment.” 

“How did you lug all this stuff here on short notice?”  _ She _ hadn't helped, she knew. She rested her head in her hands again. 

(“You're lucky,” she'd told Pete once. “Your powers don't leave you feeling like three-day-old roadkill afterwards.”

“Yeah,” he'd returned, “but I do spend like a billion dollars on tacos now. Besides, your powers are way cooler. I'm just a regular guy who can lift a bunch of stuff.”

Myka had surrendered to eating sugar, in frankly pathetic quantities, to combat the roadkill feeling the day after. But that wasn't something she'd tell  _ anyone _ , not even her best friend.)

“I didn't.” As nonchalant as you please.

Myka looked up, narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means, I didn't do it on short notice.” Helena glanced at her, assessingly. “It means I set up what I hoped would be a lure for the queen here. And once she's gone, the rest should shut down.”

“And you didn't think to  _ tell _ us?” Myka was striding across the room, reaching out to — to strangle her, probably.

_ She told me _ , Steve interjected, and Myka stilled.  _ The queen showed up sooner than anyone expected. _

Pete might as well have punched her in the gut.  _ We're supposed to be a team, Steve. _

“Because we all know how much faith you have in my work.” Helena's momentary smile was saccharine, sardonic.

She sucked in a breath, mind reeling like the colors of a kaleidoscope. “I think you're brilliant,” slipped out. “You've got no common sense, but you're a genius. You're, what, five years older than me? And you've found a whole other universe. Like something out of one of your books.” Helena was staring at her, lips parted, that melting gaze soft and shocked. “You're just so stupid, and — and selfish sometimes!”

_ Incoming! Myka! _

She didn't think, just grabbed Helena and jumped.

But she didn't have some destination in mind, not even some instinctive concept of safe harbor. And now Helena was here with her, floating in this strange stillness that was everywhere and nowhere.  _ I'm sorry _ , she tried to say, but there was no way to hear.

Like being thrown under a waterfall, she had no idea which way was up, air,  _ reality _ . Stupid stupid, she'd been so tired, she hadn't  _ thought _ — and wasn't that what she always accused Helena of? The thing she feared most in herself, the not  _ thinking _ , the reason for rules.

She tried to picture the lobby they'd left, tried to reach for any anchor.

_ There,  _ that stupid blinking laptop, she could almost see it, and the ceiling plaster raining down, the claws and slobbering mandibles and gigantic five-eyed frilled head.

She pushed Helena away,  _ through _ , pushed her to stumble onto that ragged red lobby carpet, and met the monster's claws.

It thrashed, resisted, but Myka  _ yanked _ it with her, and then everything went black.


	4. To Live That Perfect Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon Divergence — what if Sam never died?

Myka started awake to a high mechanical keen. Blinking softly, with bleary sleep still clouding her thoughts, the second thing she became truly aware of was the heat coiling in her abdomen, the warmth in her chest. A languid feeling of contentment, one that slowly faded away as fragments of her dream filtered in.

_ There had been a woman _ , that much she remembered, and she frowned, because she wasn't — but —

_ They had fought _ , and Myka could still feel her —  _ Helena's _ — neck under her fingers,  _ smooth pale skin, her startled gasp _ .

But they also — and here Myka's thoughts stopped, swirled, stuttered. Because  _ she tasted of bronze and gunpowder, electricity and blood and bitterness, rich, savory  _ and Myka couldn't remember being so turned on in her life.

And  _ she was marvelous, so smart and and utterly dashing, and Myka's chest seized up every time she looked at her _ .

The keen had morphed to beeping, like a particularly annoying alarm clock, and Myka finally connected the pieces to prop herself up and glare at the weather radio on the dresser.

“Bunny?” Sam's arm tightened around her, and she sucked in a deep breath.

She wasn't trapped, she  _ wasn't _ , she was exactly where she wanted to be and H.G. Wells was a  _ man _ — “It's probably just another thunderstorm watch.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed.

_ Helena bit, often, everywhere, “I love seeing my marks on you,” she'd said, a little haltingly, and Myka had understood the unspoken, “It's proof I'm really here, alive.” _ For someone who hated hickeys no matter the giver, dream-Myka had been pretty lax about purple teeth marks.  _ Dream-Myka had liked having Helena's marks on her, too. _

_ Dream-Myka hadn't needed to catch her breath, consciously relax, when her bed partner clutched at her, either. That Myka had taken in the pained grimace, the tangled damp sheets, and held Helena, murmuring reassurances until the nightmare passed. _

The weather radio was complaining at her again, and she hit the button with a little more force than necessary.

“The National Weather Service in Denver has issued a flash flood warning for the entire state of Colorado.” The hacked-up, monotone mechanical voice prevented it from sinking in, for a split second, and then the broadcast left the familiar script far behind. “A large mass of water is pouring from north-northwest through the state. All residents are urged to seek high ground immediately.”

_ Tears streamed down Helena's cheeks in an abandoned cavern in Egypt, on a patch of gravel in Yellowstone, as Myka kissed her, held her. As Helena held her in return, reassured her she  _ hadn't  _ been wrong, that Myka had known her better than she'd known herself, that she was magnificent and so very intelligent and she should never give up the Warehouse… _ Twisted realistic sleep-stories, her father had called them once upon a time. “You're not afraid of stories, are you?” And she'd shaken her head and tried very hard not to be.

Sam was sitting up, a frown creasing his forehead. “Flooding?”

“It sounds like it.” She headed back to the bed, snagging her phone from the nightstand on the way. “We’re already on the second floor. They haven’t called for an evacuation. The emergency bag is in the closet up here, right?”

“‘Course, bunny. Same place it was when you checked last month.” Sam wrapped his arm around her and nuzzled into her hair.

Myka hunched her shoulders and looked up the news.

_ Massive Flooding Sweeping Tri-State Area; Deluge Strikes Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, and Spreading Outwards; Yellowstone National Park Apparent Epicenter Of Catastrophic Flooding; Second Noah's Flood Heralded By Evangelicals As Beginning Of The Apocalypse. _ Myka rolled her eyes at the last.

_ “Atlantis,” Helena mused, with a soft bite to Myka's wrist, “Have you ever wondered about what really happened to it?” _


End file.
